When Harry Met Lyndon

Lyndon Johnson is reported to have directed an aide to spread a rumor of infidelity about an opponent. The aid responded that it wasn’t true. LBJ told the aid he knew it wasn’t true but his opponent would still have to defend it.

Sounds a bit like Senator Harry Reid accusing Mr. Romney of not having paid taxes in 10 years.

Does anyone think, logically, that a man who has been seeking the Presidency for, at least, the last six years would do so with that particular Sword of Damocles hanging over his head? The logical answer is no, but it does bring the tax return issue to the fore, once again.

While we’re on the subject, perhaps a bit more from LBJ that Senator Reid might consider:

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read”: “President Can’t Swim.”

“It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy.“

“The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.”

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”

“Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.”

“It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy”. (Answering North Vietnamese charge that US could not endure)

“Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.”